Research and data around community safety must be multidimensional and inclusive. Participatory action research (PAR) is an approach that intentionally includes the people closest to the issue at every step of the way in traditional knowledge gathering: creating questions, interviewing and accessing populations of people, distilling findings, and sharing out the results. Alongside traditionally-trained researchers, research teams include those with relevant lived experience–people who have the personal and unique perspective that comes with having been affected by the issue being studied. This approach helps transform unequal power dynamics, creates culturally-responsive data collection methods, improves reliability of measures, increases access to hard-to-reach populations, and allows for more honest responses, leading to higher quality and more valid data. In this video, you’ll hear from three of the Center’s teams who are incorporating participatory action methods into their work. - Rachel Swaner, Director of Research, discusses the definition and importance of participatory action principles into the research process at the Center. - Basaime Spate, Coordinator of Community-Based Research, shares his experience co-leading the participatory action approach in our 2020 report, 'Gotta Make Your Own Heaven': Guns, Safety, and the Edge of Adulthood in New York City - Dee Mandiyan, Program Manager of the Youth Action Institute, describes our research fellowship that empowers youth to understand and analyze the laws and rules in New York City and their impact on young people.